Velvet Kisses(20)
It’s a text from Blake.
Hey sweetheart. Could you pick up dinner? I put in an order at The Spaghetti Hut. Two large pizzas. One is all yours for the trouble. My treat.
His treat. I shake my head a moment.
I glance back up at Marley, her face stained with red blotches as if she were ready to cry or throw sharp objects at me. A castration might be on the table.
“You’re in luck, Marley. I just might have a business plan that quadruples your income potential. I promise if you hear me out, you might end up with a lucrative business that puts your classmates to shame.”
“Considering Will is one of my classmates, I’m all ears.”
“Great.” I stand and lock up my briefcase. “I’ll share every last detail over dinner.”
* * *
I follow Marley to Whitney Briggs where she drops her car off, and we pick up the pizzas on the way to the carriage house. We keep the conversation light, with me avoiding the pitfall of burning all her dreams to ashes and her avoiding the topic of climbing on my dick for investigative purposes.
“So you’re really going to turn my business venture into a money maker, huh?” She asks as she sashays to the door.
“You’ve got the brains. I’ve got the money.”
“What’s that suppose to mean?” She gives a sly grin as she rings the doorbell. The wanting in her eyes lights up the evening like flares. Marley is nonstop seducing me, beckoning me to be so much more than someone she makes coffee for.
“It means, I’m interested in investing.”
“Really?” She gives an enthusiastic hop and nearly flips the pizzas right out of my hands.
“Really.”
The door swings open, and my brother looks slightly rumpled. Annie comes up from behind looking a little worn out herself, and I’m not sure if the baby has them ragged or if they’ve done it to themselves the old fashioned way.
We make our way in and start on dinner. About part way through, the baby bleats like a lamb, and Annie is quick to comfort him. Baby Ben is named after his father, Benjamin, the brother I lost last summer. Blake stepped up when the birth mother announced she didn’t want anything to do with the kid. I’m proud as hell of my little bro. Blake has always had balls of steel. What he doesn’t know is that if he didn’t do it, I would have.
I give a careful examination of the little boy who was almost mine.
“Don’t be greedy.” Marley flicks her fingers in anticipation at Annie, and the baby changes hands.
Something in me loosens. My stomach relaxes. That tense knot in my shoulders gives a little when I see her with that infant in her arms. Marley deserves all the happy endings life can afford to give her. She’s smart—also a smart ass—but that’s just a little detail. She’s gorgeous as a fox—young and too fucking beautiful if that’s even possible. I withhold the urge to apologize to her for the internal expletive. Nevertheless, she’s—my mind fights me on the last little bit of information that certifies her from ever being mine. Too young, too fit, too beautiful—when the hell did I get so picky? How many laws would I be breaking by seeing someone like Marley? That’s right, none. I hack through my pizza before knocking back an ice-cold beer as Annie and Marley head to the bedroom to change the baby.
“So what’s the deal?” Blake takes my beer from me and sets it down on the table.
“What’s the deal with what?”
“She wanted to fuck you the other night.”
I smack him in the gut. “What the hell are you shouting for?”
“Annie says you shut the girl down,” he whispers, annoyed as hell with me. And, in reflection, I should be annoyed as hell with me, too.
“She’s nice.” I pick up my beer in defiance and salute him. “She’s not my type.”
“You don’t have a type.”
“That may be true, but she’s—” I shake my head in the general direction of the bedroom. I can feel the shift happening, and once it does I don’t want to be responsible for feelings or broken hearts. “Look, I saw the pain Mom went through. I saw the agony in her face over both your father and mine. It’s too much pressure. Love is something you don’t dick around with.”
“She wasn’t asking you to love her.” He raises his brows as he plucks another slice from the box. “Not in the way you’re thinking. Newsflash, big bro, just because she’s ten years your junior, doesn’t mean she’s made of glass. She just wanted to mess around. Since when is that so hard for you of all people to understand?” He takes a bite, watching me all the while. “Why don’t you do her a solid? She’ll trot off content to have gotten her way, and you’ll usher in a new era of pre-menopausal pussy.”